


ten lives john doggett could have lived

by beepollenkick



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Hurt, Multi, Season/Series 08, Season/Series 09, Vignette, hurtfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:23:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beepollenkick/pseuds/beepollenkick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>and he thinks why, why is it always the face-down bodies in the fields?</p>
            </blockquote>





	ten lives john doggett could have lived

**Author's Note:**

> direct references to: 'john doe'/'release' (luke doggett's death, s9), 'this is not happening' (mulder's death, s8), and 'aubrey pauley' (monica reyes' coma, s9).  
> -a series of vignettes of "what if"s.

1\. Luke dies, but they stay together.

He finds Luke's body, face down in the field, and it burns his eyes and the image stays scorched there for years, disappearing ever slightly as time fades the edges and crinkles it alongside his skin.

They continue their separate lives together in silence; the house becomes a time bomb, he thinks, he's waiting for it all to blow up in his face. He hopes it does. He goes to work and all he sees is the same day, the same field and the same boy, and he drowns his misery in suburbia and sub-par primetime television the minute he's home, and distracts himself at work in his off-hours by screwing the secretary, and no one ever finds out and he never tells anyone, as it's become habitual in it's monotony.

 

2\. Luke lives, but they divorce anyways.

John gets no custody; Barbara really fucked him in court. Luke was gone for four days, and he thought he'd been using his position at work to do right, he hadn't slept at all over the course of it, and he guesses now that even if they'd never found him, the stress and the grief would have made it end this way anyways.

He talks to Barbara occasionally; perhaps a phone call or two a year, for the past thirteen. They treat each other like distant relatives; communicating out of politeness more than passion or love or anything else. He hears about Luke's school studies, his birthdays; he's told Luke has grown up to love football, he's on the team, and him and his cheerleader girlfriend make the perfect, all-American, high school sweetheart dream. John thinks about familial traits, about how his own dad loved football too, how he and Barbara had met almost the exact same way, and if it really meant anything or if he's just reaching for a connection.

 

3\. They never had Luke.

They never tried to have Luke either, they both believed it would just happened or it wouldn't. They have a dog or two and upgrade from apartment to house in due time, but they never fill out that second bedroom.

 

4\. He never had Barbara.

He went from high school to college, to police academy to NYPD. The idea of settling down sits in the back of his mind, but he believes it would just happen or it wouldn't.

 

5\. Mulder dies.

He's worked with Agent Scully for a little more than a year; been in love with her for a little under one.

They trust each other on the surface, as work partners do, and she will entertain him briefly on occasion with a smile and a laugh. He remembers every word spoken between them, every glance and touch, and as they're fleeting to her, they're momentous to him. But she's carrying Mulder's child, she's spoken for by him, taken by a man who's been missing for a year, until they find him in that field, and he's cold, and he thinks why, why is it always the face-down bodies in the fields?

Mulder is buried in the winter. The cold bites and Scully stays by his grave as long as she can stand it, and then longer. She stays cold for months following.

They never find Billy Miles' body.

Scully succumbs to grief and loneliness and kisses Doggett in a moment of agony, and it burns her lips, but even feeling this is better than feeling nothing. She'll kiss him again a month later. She'll deliver William a month after that.

John sees to her the day after William is born; she sits on the edge of her too-big bed, distantly cradling the baby, expressionless and detached as she studies his features. She notices John and throws on a smile like she's been caught. This pattern becomes normalcy after some time, as he'll walk in on moments of emotional voids, and she can play an emotion for him well enough to survive but he knows she's miserable and she's stopped giving it a name.

William babbles "da-da" to Doggett when he's at Scully's apartment sometimes, and he's too young to understand or even notice that "ma-ma" has to leave the room.

 

6\. Mulder lives, and John and Monica end up together.

It was a matter of time before the two of them finally fall into bed together. It had taken a few years and a murder case to end his marriage, but she is good for him and he needs someone, and she is happy and bright and good at what she does, and he appreciates it.

They've always worked well together anyways, now they just live well together, and fuck well together, and he thought he'd known intimacy before he'd met Monica but she is an entirely new type of woman, and she innately knew how he works and how he lives and how he fucks, and he feels like he's along for the ride as a passenger in his own life, watching it change through the windows as she drives him through the universe.

 

7\. He and Monica end up together, but fall apart.

It was a matter of time before it all went to hell.

He blames himself, as he has with everything before, as he will with everything, because he can't help but only see his shortcomings and downfalls. He doesn't care for himself the way Monica cared for him.

She doesn't blame him; she couldn't, she still cares for him, probably more than he'll ever know.

She relocates back to New York in silence, leaving her apartment bare for him to find one day, hoping it'll be easier than some long-winded "goodbye" and a volatile promise of return. She leaves, and lives, and waits.

 

8\. Monica dies.

She wilts under life support and a ghostly pallor envelops her once-rosy cheeks and thin plum lips. John grips her hands, strokes the soft skin of her palms, waits for a response. He hopes for anything, leaning on explanation he can't justify or understand, relying on a messenger of purgatory disguised in the girl who brings the flowers.

She's passed her messages to him, and her fervent chase is halted to soon, or perhaps too late, as she steps from the edge of the stairway as her moment is lost to the void and she's gone.

The doctors don't hesitate in rushing her away, preparing her for use of her organ donor card, and it's not long at all before she's really gone, and he still can't quite wrap his head around predestined fate over conscious actions, why he let her try to go home tonight instead of finally kissing her like he'd meant to, keeping her close beside him, keeping her safe. He can't wrap his head around why he didn't kiss her when he had the chance.

He goes home to empty feelings and a case of beer, and a million blames he throws at himself and a loaded handgun and a loud football game on T.V.

 

9\. John dies.

Good thing he never got that cat.

 

10.

John lives.

Monica lives.

Scully has her baby, and Mulder lives to see his son.

Luke dies, and Barbara leaves, but John realizes in due time that sometimes people leave before their time is up, and that not everything is always his fault.

**Author's Note:**

> so this idea happened upon me late one night! and i thought "yes, why not cause myself extreme anguish over this one character nobody in fandom seems to care about except me?" :^)  
> tbh this was a different.. thing.... than i am used to shitting out.  
> i've always admired vignette fics like this, with multiple 'what-if' scenarios to one storyline or idea. i actually got the inspiration from the "eight things that could have happened in oregon" fic (by stephen greenwood, i believe? its on here. i've read it several, shameless times). anyways, i'd always seen this style fic for a lot of mulder/scully, which is just fine, thankyou, but i thought, smol literal puppy doggett needs some love. or some angst. same thing in the world of fandom, really.


End file.
